


Is It Just Me

by TheGoodDoctor



Series: Group Targets [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 21:58:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8177545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor
Summary: AU in which proximity to soulmates makes one hotter or colder.James has been cold for a very long time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inktober day one. I'm doing a different AU every day.

James has never felt hot. He can vaguely remember the feeling of soft arms ensconcing him in lavender-scented warmth, and the smell of burning pine resin and the heat of the fire across the room while leaning on the solid, wool-wrapped weight beside him on the sofa, but that was half a lifetime ago. The heat of parental love is always weaker than the real thing, they say, but James would not know; it is also all James has ever had.

He's been cold since he was six; the snow on the mountain his parents had been climbing flowing into his veins. James thought he would never be warm again.

James runs, exercises, feels the sweat and remembers how cold he is, how cold he has always been, powers on. He has to be stronger than the feeling. Eventually, he can kid himself that he doesn’t care.

Lying in other people's beds, he knows he must be warm due to the sweat running in rivers through the valleys of his chest, but he feels none of it. He tries again, and again, hoping each time that the energy expended with beautiful people will warm his frozen bones, waiting for the flicker of heat to make itself known. It never does.

“Do you feel it, James?” Vesper asks, innocently, drawing pictures in the sticky sweat on his chest. She looks up at him through her lashes, soft skin pressing harder against him with each breath. She is beautiful. James is cold.

He looks down at her, trying to pull his thoughts back from his hips to his head and managing a raised eyebrow instead of the smooth question for which he had been aiming.

She giggles, delighted with her impact on him. She wouldn't be, if she knew. Vesper takes pity, eventually. “The heat, my love. I can. Isn’t it glorious?”

James’ throat closes up. He can't. James Bond is nothing if not a tryer, though, so tugs her closer in lieu of an answer, presses his lips to hers hungrily, jealously, desperate to pull that warmth from her chest and hold it tight within his own.

When she drowns, he isn't cold. He is frozen.

* * *

“Bill, have you ever felt warm?” James is definitely drunk.

Tanner thinks about this. “Yes,” he decides eventually.

James sits up from his position lying on the floor to eyeball the man leaning against the camp bed, dangling a bottle of half-drunk beer from loose fingers. “When?”

“Now.” James leans back, shocked. “Not like that, you daft bugger, just-” Bill flails, spilling a few drops of beer, eventually pointing at the bottle instead of with it. “This beer, for example, is lukewarm. Your face, f’r’instance,” Bill lurches forward and presses his fingers to James’ cheek, “is warm. Ish. A bit. Issa, it's a friend thing, I think.”

James lies back down. “Huh.” His face tingles where Bill’s finger had been. James tries not to think about it.

* * *

James meets Eve, and cannot seduce her. She won't have it. He's delighted, secretly; Eve is wonderful, and each partner who can elicit no heat from him is forever tainted.

Eve likes Bill, too, and they drink together more than once; cheap beer in dark and grimy pubs, laughing too loud, avoiding the nuts at the bar.

On one such occasion, someone decides to get a bit handsy with Eve. She can handle it, obviously, and is slightly irritated by James’ meddling, but he is incandescent with rage and full of beer. The three get thrown out, permanently, and the man’s nose will never sit straight again, but when Eve punches his bare arm, he feels traces of warmth left by her knuckles.

James pokes Bill’s face in the middle of one of his many complaints. He breaks off, laughing, and pushes James’ hand away.

James stares at it, silently. He felt something, not very hot, but there.

* * *

A bespectacled kid sits beside him in an art gallery and James is _burning._ It feels as if the skin will peel off his palm when they shake hands.

Q smiles, and it's a supernova.

Holding Q tight, at last, and James understands why cats lie in front of fires. He could lie with Q for ever, basking in their shared delight.

* * *

M dies, and everything hurts, but Q is there to chase the cold of the frozen lake out of his bones.

He doesn't expect to like Mallory, and doesn't. No matter how Q raises an eyebrow every time James complains, how many times he does actually, sort of like Mallory, how many times they shake hands and James’ palms are left warm in midwinter.

* * *

James is warm and content, standing beside Q in Tanner’s office with Bill, Eve and Gareth.

“Excuse me, a moment,” Q says, squeezing James’ hand and trotting off to collect something from Q-branch, on the other side of the building.

James waits for the warmth to fade, and it does, a little. Not as much as usual. He frowns.

“James, darling, don't think so hard. You'll sprain something,” Eve says lightly.

“I'm still warm,” he says, abruptly. “Q’s gone, and I'm still warm, but just...with...you…” he trails off as the others send him soft smiles.

“Did you only just realise?” Bill asks gently. James makes a confused and ever-so-slightly terrified noise.

“We feel warm with you, too. It's a weaker heat than a romantic soulmate but still hot,” Gareth explains. “Soulbonds can be formed with especially close friends, too.”

“I've felt it before. I just...assumed-”

“It's okay,” Bill smiles. “We're just destined to be mates and drink crap beer and make stupid jokes together for the rest of our lives.”

“I could get used to that,” James says, honestly. Q returns with a smile and James tucks him under one arm, snug against his side. The warmth of that one moment makes up for a whole lifetime of cold, and he could absolutely get used to this heat, blossoming in his chest and running like liquid gold to the very tips of his fingers.

James snorts to himself.

“Hmm?” Q looks at him curiously.

“Just wondering - is it hot in here, or is that just me?”


End file.
